Hallyu Growing
South Korea's leading content and media company CJ E&M (CEO Kim Sung-su) announced that it signed a deal with Malaysia’s 8TV and Singapore’s largest pay TV operator StarHub to sell its original dramas and to form a drama block. They will each air over 200 hours of drama content produced by CJ E&M.
As Malaysia’s 8TV already started airing “The Incomplete,” called “Mi-saeng” in Korean in January, at 10:30 pm every Thursday and Friday, the drama has earned favorable reviews. Also, the channel has started airing “The Dogged Gu Hae Ra,” or “Chiljun Palki Gu Hae Ra” in Korea, from March, which has also gained in popularity. 8TV plans to provide other Korean dramas to viewers in the future as well. Starting from May 31, Singapore’s VV Drama will air drama series of CJ E&M at 9:30 pm on every Sunday.
Seo Jang-ho, the head of CJ E&M's content sales department, said, “Both broadcasting companies in Malaysia and Singapore introduced overseas content in the short term before. However, it is exceptional to air dramas produced by a single broadcasting company at a specific time zone, and the first in history for Korean broadcasting companies. As we have formed a fixed block at the prime time belt, the company will make efforts to spread Hallyu and expand business areas in the Southeast Asian markets through strengthening the partnership with 8TV and StarHub in the future.”
Meanwhile, 8TV is the representative terrestrial channel under Media Prima, the largest media company in Malaysia, and StarHub TV is Singapore’s largest pay TV operator that carries over 200 channels in 540,000 households.